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Power food

Sergi was sent down for 15 years for smuggling caviar. In prison he became a poet and now he laughs at the new Russians

By Vanora Bennett  
February 20, 2001
February 2001

On the shore of the Caspian Sea you can, if you know the right people, have a poacher’s breakfast: a caviar sandwich. The poacher will hack a slice off a white loaf and smear it with freshly caught sturgeon roe. He might wave the inch-thick sandwich in your face, laughing through gold teeth. “How much would this cost in London… Thousands! So go on, eat it. It’s good for you. It’s power food.”

All you have to do is bash a female sturgeon on the head, slit her open, wash the roe in salted water and strain the eggs. The…

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Vanora Bennett

Vanora Bennett is a journalist and writer. Her novel “Portrait of an Unknown Woman” is about Hans Holbein, one of Europe’s first portraitists

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